by Elmer Kelton
“Everything’ll be all right, Danny,” Tom spoke gently, leading the boy forward. “We’re goin’ home to your new mother.”
LAND WITH NO LAW
The hot July sun hammered down on the four riders as they slow-walked their mounts into the main street of Lofton, their shoulders slumped with weariness. Not a breath of wind stirred the manes of the scattering of horses hitched up and down the way, and dust raised by the plodding hooves hung listlessly in the dry air.
From the heat-dried adobes and the sun-darkened frame buildings, people moved out into the street to watch. This was a quiet afternoon, and the movement of the riders was quick to catch the eye. People saw the four horsemen first, and then their gaze dropped back to the fifth horse. It carried on its back a slack bundle wrapped in a dusty woolen blanket. The riders drew rein in front of the sheriff’s office. One of them stepped down stiffly, so tired that it seemed he would fall to the ground. He turned back to the man behind him, and only then did it become apparent that this man’s wrists were in handcuffs.
“All right, Nichols,” said the sheriff, “you can get down.”
Several men moved out hesitantly from the boardwalk and looked at the bundle on the fifth horse. One of them asked worriedly, “Who is it, Mark? Who did they get?”
Sheriff Mark Truitt took a deep breath and leaned heavily against a hitching rail. His blue eyes were bloodshot from endless hours of riding without sleep, and from the bite of alkali. His face, although young, looked old now through a matting of black whiskers, grayed by a powdering of dust.
“Chip Tony,” he said after a long moment. “They got Chip Tony.”
The sheriff’s smarting eyes moved along the rapidly gathering crowd and picked out a young cowboy. “Harley, I wish you’d go find Will Tony. Better take somebody with you, and break it easy. His sun rose and set on that brother of his.”
Another man took the reins of the led horse and asked gravely, “Want me to take care of Chip for you, Mark?”
The sheriff nodded, and there was pain in his voice. “I wish you would.”
He looked then to the two weary men who still sat their horses. “Homer, you and Joe put the horses up, then go get some sleep. I can handle it from here.”
They nodded. One of them pulled his horse back. The other hesitated a moment. “Mark, get Doc Workman to look at your head. That’s a bad lick you got there.”
“I’ll be all right. You go get some rest.”
Mark Truitt caught his prisoner’s arm and motioned him toward the door of the combination office and jail. The prisoner, an unshaven cowboy in his midtwenties, took a long look at the gathering crowd. Fear chilled his eyes.
There was no one in any of the three jail cells, not even a drunk sleeping one off. Truitt found one of the cell doors half open. He unlocked the handcuffs and motioned Nichols into the cell. He locked the heavy barred door with a key from his desk, then turned back toward the front porch.
More men were gathering, and soon there was a large crowd out front. Truitt knew he owed them some kind of explanation. He took off his hat and pitched it back against the wall. He stood in the doorway, one hand braced on the jamb to help steady himself against his bone-weariness.
“We didn’t have any trouble finding the trail of the stolen cattle,” he said. “We followed them south, into the brush. The thieves were getting close to the river, and we had to jump them quick or they’d be across the border. We thought we had them, but somehow everything just seemed to go wrong.
“They killed Chip, and they shot the horse from under me. We got one of them”—he nodded back toward the cell—“when Homer Brill shot his horse and it fell and pinned him down. We had to let the rest of them go. There was nothing else we could do.”
An angry hum of conversation lifted to him as the crowd talked it out. Someone asked, “It was the Rankin brothers, wasn’t it?”
Mark Truitt nodded. “Yes, it was the Rankins. We saw them—Edsel and Floyd both.”
Some of the men slowly began to disperse then, but many of them stayed there, talking and gesturing sharply among themselves. Truitt caught the angry tone of the talk. He knew some of it was aimed at him.
“He got a good man killed, and he didn’t even catch those cow thieves,” he heard some say. “It’s sure time for a new sheriff, I’m telling you.”
“There’ll be one,” someone replied hotly, making sure he was loud enough for Truitt to hear. “Wait till the election’s over tomorrow.”
Mark Truitt hadn’t thought about the election in two days. Now it came back to him. Turning, he saw the placard some nervy soul had tacked beside Truitt’s own door: “Elect Dalton Krisman Sheriff.” He let it stay there.
Truitt moved back into his office. He wanted to drop into the big chair at the desk, but he didn’t allow himself that yet. He reached into a drawer at the bottom and took out a bottle and glass. He didn’t use liquor much, but once in a while he felt the need of it.
He downed a stiff drink and then set the glass and bottle on his desk. He walked across to the washstand and poured the basin full from the tin pitcher. He splashed cool water over his dirty, bewhiskered face, rubbing hard with a wet rag to get some of the dirt off. Funny, he thought, how much it helped relieve a man’s weariness just to wash his face. He was careful how he used the wet rag against the side of his head. An angry red place still remained where his head had struck the ground as his horse went down. It was tender to the touch, and it throbbed without letup.
Finished, he turned and found two men waiting. They were both cowmen. One was well into middle age, the other one not far from it. Both were gray from a life of hard work and worry.
“Mark,” said old Sam Vernon, “we just heard. Is there anything we can do?”
The sheriff shook his head. “There’s nothing anybody can do now, Sam. We’ve lost Chip Tony, and one cow thief isn’t much trade for a kid like Chip.”
He glanced at the other man. “We didn’t even get your cattle back, Luke.” Luke Merchant was a wagon boss of the big LS outfit. He had been a Ranger once. Merchant’s eyes kindled as he looked back into the cell where the prisoner sat, with his head in his hands.
“I wouldn’t have brought him back alive.”
Truitt eyed him evenly. “Yes you would, Luke.”
The wagon boss dropped his gaze and made futile, angry gesture with his hands. “Yeah, I reckon I would.” That was why he had quit the Rangers. He had come to hate guns and violence with a passion that a man can develop only after he has been through the hell of battle.
Sam Vernon added, “Bad break, Mark. Mighty bad. It looked for a while as if you weren’t even going to get back for the election.”
Truitt shrugged. “It might’ve been better if I hadn’t.”
“Krisman’s really been making the rounds while you’ve been gone, Mark. The things he’s been saying—and people are listening to him. It looks bad.”
Truitt eased down into the chair and looked hopelessly at the papers piled up on the rolltop desk, papers and letters that needed attention he hadn’t been able to give them. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, trying to ease the burning in them and knowing he couldn’t. He wished they’d talk about something else besides the election. He was too tired to care about it, one way or the other.
“It was kind of a joke when Krisman first announced he was running for office,” said Luke Merchant. “He never made much of a go of anything in his life; he just talked loud. I never took him seriously.”
“We’ve got to take him seriously now,” Sam Vernon declared. “He has folks uneasy and beginning to want a change. Sometimes they’ll make a big mistake, Mark, just because they get anxious for a new deal.”
Truitt shrugged. “I’m too worn out to care. If they want Krisman in, they’re welcome to him.”
Sam Vernon argued, “He’s not sheriff material, Mark. In the first little crisis he’ll break to pieces. The Rankin boys would eat us up.”
Truitt said bl
eakly, “Looks as if they’re doing it now.”
“You’ll get them, Mark, if folks’ll give you time. You’ve crowded them plenty. Without you they’d have been a lot worse. But if Krisman wins, it’ll be an open invitation to them. The only thing that could stop them then would be vigilantes, and we don’t want any of that.”
All Mark wanted right now was to go in the back room, throw himself across the cot, and not wake up for a week. But he wondered if he could sleep, if the picture of Chip Tony’s broken body wouldn’t keep coming back to him.
“What’re you going to do, Mark?” Sam Vernon pressed him. “Are you going to get out there and work for the vote?”
Truitt shook his head. “I’m going out there tomorrow and try to find somebody to go with me after the Rankins again.”
Sam’s eyes were black. “Then you’ll lose, Mark. And the Rankins’ll be rid of you.”
A girl stood in the doorway, a tall, pretty girl with worry in her blue eyes. “Mark,” she said in a strained voice, “are you all right?”
He looked at Betty Mulvane, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. How much he had thought of her these last few days! He wanted to reach out to her and hold her close, but he couldn’t with these men here to watch.
So he said simply, “I’m all right, Betty.” He knew she understood everything else he wanted to say.
She took a step forward, conscious of the other two men but looking only at Mark. “They said you were wounded.”
“Just a lick on the head. It doesn’t amount to anything.”
They stood looking at each other and Betty’s eyes were soft. “T.C. said I should tell you he’ll be over in a minute to watch the jail for you. Don’t you want to come and eat?”
He shook his head. “Later, maybe. Right now I’m too tired to eat.”
She nodded, her voice gentle. “All right, Mark. It’ll be there, whenever you’re ready.”
He heard the clump of feet on the boardwalk and looked past Betty toward the door. Dalton Krisman marched in. Five or six others followed him. Krisman was a large man, good-looking in his way, still a few years shy of middle age.
He was a little soft, for he seldom did much hard work. He always dressed neatly, without ever quite overdoing it to the point that people would scoff at him behind his back. He could even be a likeable sort when he wanted to be. Right now he wasn’t trying to make Mark Truitt like him.
Krisman took off his new hat and bowed toward Betty Mulvane. “Hello, Betty. I should have known you would be here.”
She colored, for it was hard to know just how Krisman meant it.
Krisman turned then to Mark. “I understand you’ve failed again, Mark.” His voice was loud enough to carry to anyone who might be listening outside.
Mark Truitt eyed his opponent warily, knowing Krisman was playing this for political advantage but not knowing exactly what he could do about it.
“We didn’t get the cattle back,” Truitt conceded.
Krisman’s voice sharpened. “Edsel and Floyd Rankin are still at large with a hundred and fifty head of LS cattle, and the blood of Chip Tony on their hands.”
“We got one of their men,” Truitt said stubbornly.
“Some cheap outlaw,” Krisman said, glancing back to the cell. “Some worthless cowboy gone bad. The Rankins can find another just like him and not lose a day. One cheap outlaw to make up for the loss of a fine young man like Chip Tony? You’ve made a sorry mess of this, Mark Truitt.”
Krisman was standing near the desk. He picked up the bottle and held it high, making a show of reading the label. He didn’t say anything about it, but his inference was plain enough.
Truitt knew Krisman was deliberately baiting him in front of these men, but he couldn’t prevent the flush of heat in his face. “You never had any use for Chip Tony while he was alive, Krisman, and he never had any use for you. I won’t have you using his name in a cheap political move.”
“Maybe you’d like to tell us just what happened,” said Krisman.
Mark Truitt shook his head. It ached. It had ached ever since he had taken the fall. “Right now I’m tired, and I want to rest. I’ll give a full report on it later.”
He knew he was in no condition to stand up to Krisman’s sharp tongue. Krisman could cut him to pieces.
“I think we’re entitled to a report now. Here’s Scott Southall. He’s delayed publication of his paper a whole day to see what report you’d bring in. I think readers all over the county will be interested.”
The sheriff frowned, seeing the newspaper editor standing behind Krisman. Southall was a short, thin man who looked as if he would blow away in a good west wind. For some reason, Southall had never liked Truitt. Maybe it was because Truitt took people as they came, and he let them take him the same way.
He never was one to go out of his way to slap a man on the back and tell him a lot of things he didn’t mean, the way Krisman did. And Mark Truitt hadn’t spent much money in Southall’s paper, either, advertising his candidacy. He hadn’t had it to spend. But Krisman had.
Mark could visualize the story on the front page of Southall’s weekly if he didn’t take time now to tell what had happened:
“The sheriff refused to tell the people of Lofton County the details of the ill-starred chase after the notorious cattle thieves, the Rankin brothers, although candidate Krisman demanded such an explanation.”
Southall would make it strong.
Truitt shrugged futilely and sat down at his desk. “All right, I’ll tell you what happened. We trailed them south, deep into the brush. They had left a good trail. It didn’t seem as if they cared much. They were going fast anyway, and it wasn’t far to the river.
“We hoped they’d stop somewhere, and we could get them easy. Once they hit the river, there’d be nothing we could do, because they’d be over the border. Pretty soon we could tell they weren’t going to stop, and we had to get them the best way we could.
“Something went wrong—we never did know just what. We thought we’d surprise them, but when we made the run at them, we found they were ready. The first shot knocked my horse out from under me. The others went on. That’s when they killed Chip Tony.”
Dalton Krisman’s eyes widened with interest. “You mean, Truitt, that you weren’t even with your men when the boy was killed?”
“The fall stunned me. I couldn’t get up.”
Krisman had his chance now. He pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. “Couldn’t, Mark, or wouldn’t? Could it be that you didn’t want to, that it was the shooting that stunned you, not the fall? That you lay there, scared, and didn’t lift a finger to help the others?”
Betty Mulvane exclaimed, “Krisman, you’re a liar.”
Trembling with anger, Mark Truitt pushed to his feet and eased Betty aside.
“You know better than that, Krisman.”
“No,” said Krisman, “I don’t. It looks logical enough to me. You got yourself in a situation that was over your head, and you knew it. Even after your horse went down, you could have kept on shooting at the rustlers to help cover your men as they went in. But you didn’t, Mark. You panicked. You lay there and left them to their fate. You let Chip Tony die!”
Truitt’s fist came up so fast that Krisman never even saw it before it sent him reeling back into the thin arms of Scott Southall. The surprised editor couldn’t hold him. Krisman went down heavily. Rising up on an elbow, he shook his head and rubbed his jaw. There was triumph in his eyes, and a trace of a grin on his torn lip. He had done even better than had expected.
“Now you fight, Mark, now that there’s no one shooting at you. I won’t cheapen myself by brawling in here. I’ll do my fighting tomorrow, when the voters come in. And I’ll beat you, Mark Truitt.”
Scott Southall helped Krisman to his feet. Krisman staggered out the door, his hand on his jaw so anyone who was outside would know what had happened. Suddenly he was a martyr to truth.
Southall jotted rapid notes on a folded s
heet of paper. Presently he looked up, plainly pleased. “Anything else you’d care to say for the readers, Sheriff?”
“Get out!”
The editor scampered out. Sobered, Truitt stared after him. Sam Vernon stood sadly behind him, saying nothing. Truitt was angry with himself. He knew he had given Krisman what he came for, and probably a lot more. He gritted something under his breath, then turned and walked into the back room. He flopped down across the cot and dropped off into a fitful sleep.
Some movement in the room finally awakened him. He raised his head and saw that it was dark. He had slept through the afternoon, and into the early evening. A match flared. Betty Mulvane stood with the lamp chimney in one hand, the match in the other. She lit the lamp and put the chimney back on. Then she turned the wick down to where there was no smoke.
“Hello, Mark. I brought you some supper.”
He swung his feet over the edge of the cot and sat up. His head still throbbed a bit, but was no longer as bad as it had been. “Thanks, Betty. I didn’t intend to sleep so long.”
The sleep had helped, though. He fingered his chin, feeling the scratch of whiskers and knowing he looked half outlaw.
“Don’t apologize,” she told him softly. “I don’t care if the whiskers are a foot long, just so you’re safe.”
She pointed to the tray she had set down on a small table. “Now you come on and eat something. You need it. I told T.C. to go along and have his supper, that I’d wake you up.”
He reached out, caught her hand, pulled her to him and kissed her.
She smiled and pulled back a little. “People are talking enough already.”
He felt a stir of resentment. “Not about you, I hope.”
She shrugged, keeping her smile even, though it somehow looked hollow. “When a single girl insists on staying in a town like this and running a cafe all by herself, feeding fifty men a day, they’re bound to talk a little, I guess. And when she’s seen so often in the company of the sheriff, and nothing is said about marriage, they’ll talk a little more.”
He clenched his fist. “They can say all they want to about me, Betty, but I won’t stand for their talking about you.”